Black Fridayis coming up on Nov. 27, that big shopping day right after Thanksgiving. The folks at Record Store Daywill be releasing more than 140 releases that day, not to mention it’s new release day, with new stuff out from Bjork, Parquet Courtsand others. If you can't make it in to one of our stores on 11/27, there's still hope you can snag one of these titles. We'll be adding Record Store Day Black Friday releases to Amoeba.com throughout the day.

See a list (.pdf) of everything we’ll have for sale here, and check out our 12 picks for releases to look for on Black Friday below.

Four seminal artists are getting the reissue treatment this week. The works of David Bowie, Queen, Captain Beefheart, and Bob Marley are back and better than ever, with remastered albums, 180 gram vinyl, and some very fancy box sets. Completists and collectors, take note of these soon-to-be essentials, available at Amoeba.

David Bowie, Five Years 1969 – 1973 Box Set and individual album reissues

Ever since Amoeba fan/Simpsons creator Matt Groening recently paid tribute to Amoeba Music by including an Amoeba Music Hollywood fashioned building (renamed Protozoa Records) in the Season 24, Episode 7 Simpsons show titled "The Day The Earth Stood Cool" that aired in early December I have been scratching my head and wondering what if Homer Simpson were to stop into Amoeba for some music shopping? What would he buy? What would be included in a Homer Simpson's WIMB (What's In My Bag?) episode if he were to go crate digging at Amoeba Music? Based on the numerous songs Homer has cited (most well worn Top 40 pop/rock hits that the cartoon character supposedly grew up listening to) and have been featured in episodes in the long running animated series, now in its 24th year, this is my stab at what Homer's WIMB might look like.

Bear in mind that this list only scratches the surface since over the years Groening and company have incorporated such a long list of hit songs into The Simpsons. In fact the show must have racked up quite a bill in copyright fees to license all this popular music for the show. But it is worth it since music often plays such an important role in so many episodes of The Simpsons - especially the Homer related songs. For example, when Homer and Marge pop into the open house next door to them and he imagines buying the house and what it would be like living next door to himself, just how horrible that would be, as he visualizes himself always playing Journey's "Separate Ways" and at way too loud volumes.

Rock music has way too many incredibly memorable guitar riffs to limit a best of list to just one hundred, but the 100 riffs that guitarist Alex Chadwick of The Chicago Music Exchange came up with for the above video performance ain't half bad, and it is a nice informal overview of the history of rock n' roll. Sure it's a subjective selection that includes a lot of mega hits of the genre, and no doubt every rock fan could come up with their own unique list of a hundred best guitar riffs. But I like what Alex has done: from his playing to his choices of riffs, and from how he segues from song to song, to how he plays it on his 1958 Fender Stratall in chronological order. Below is that list of songs and artists in order with the artist names that are blue highlighted linking back to the Amoeba Online Store. where you can find their respective music (CDs, LPs, DVDs) including (in near all cases) the song played by Alex.

One day at Amoeba Hollywood I proclaimed that Aztec Camera's 1983 release High Land, Hard Rain was one of the best records of the '80s. This single statement eventually led to over 200 Amoebites ranking their top 10 favorite albums from the ‘80s.

From the beginning we realized that it was impossible for most of us to condense our favorites from all genres into a tiny top ten list. So, we limited our lists to Rock/Pop and its sub-genres like punk, metal, goth, and new wave. Even so, it was a difficult selection process because not only are there hundreds of amazing records to consider, there is also the added dynamic of time.

The '80s were a long time ago and the music has had many years to gestate. We have a deep sense of nostalgia and sentiment with these albums as our fondest memories are associated with them. These are albums we LOVE.